The secret life of handmade art dolls

Custom Dolls

July 27, 2010

It probably won't surprise those of you who follow my blog that fairies aren't really my thing. I love the idea of fairies, mind you, especially the somewhat menacing fairies of Irish folklore, but I generally find visual representations of them to be a little too cutesy for my taste (and sometimes weirdly sexualized, like those hoochie-mama fairies who lounge on toadstools wearing bikinis and looking like they just stepped out of the pages of Maxim). But recently, my godmother's husband asked me to make a doll for my Godmother's birthday. (When family and close friends ask, my "no custom orders at this time" dictum becomes a little wobbly.)

And because when I was growing up, my Godmother was known as my Fairy Godmother, we agreed that the doll should have wings of some sort and a somewhat fairy-esque vibe (which to me means some diaphanous clothing and whatever else I feel like). I also promised a tiny moose because my Fairy Godmother loves moose, and so I made a little albino moose and very stupidly forgot to take a single photo of him, even though I was quite delighted with how he turned out. But I did manage to snap the fairy a few times, so here she is.

This fairy has flame-red hair, just like her human counterpart did when I was little. So, why is she a Fairy Godmother rather than just the garden variety? She used to help me get ready for school, and let me wear my tutu with a plaid shirt because I refused to be talked into something more sensible. She gave me the best books, and once when I was about six and too small to reach the counters, she spread newspaper out all over the kitchen floor so that I could help make cookies. We mailed the cookies along with a letter and some photos to my Grandmother in England, who later told my FG that when she opened the box left by the postman in the garage, she sat down on a box of old newspapers and cried.

April 20, 2010

I went on record last summer saying that I would no longer be taking custom orders, and while that's still generally true, I do find it hard to say no to family and friends, so I do still make the occasional special dollie based on a specific request. Recently, I contacted a professor in my department about something altogether non-doll, and when she wrote back she asked if I was the same Sarah Faber who made dolls. It turned out that she'd read the Globe & Mail article from a few months back but, never having taught me, didn't know that I was also a student in the department. It was all quite exciting because I felt, for a brief moment, like a very small 'c' celebrity - I'm sure it's as close to that feeling as I'll ever get! Anyway, said very kind professor asked if I'd make a custom order for her brother's wedding gift, and after she gave me my fleeting moment of feeling ever so slightly puffed up, how could I say no? It turns out flattery really will get you everywhere...

These pictures aren't the greatest - I was in too much of a hurry to set up a proper shot. But here is the happy couple, doll-style. I fell in love with the boy doll - I think I'll have to make a couple for my next update...

p.s. Thanks for making the hat, baby... and the stands! You're the best! Marry me!!

August 14, 2009

Please don't hate me, but the truth is, I'm not a lover of summer. Or rather, I do love summer when I'm somewhere rural and on the ocean, like my father's house in Cape Breton; there I can walk in the woods and jump in the ocean when it gets to hot, and the heat is a nice, dry heat that makes everything brighter, more intense. But in Montreal we get humid, melty, smoggy heat that makes me feel tired and perpetually dirty. We've had a pretty mild summer so far and I have been so very happy, but we are having our first real heat wave, with temperatures in the 30's (or 90's, depending on your location). I. am. hot. But at least I got the go ahead to take my brace off at night for the next two weeks; sleeping in that foamy, fleecy, velcro-y, metal roddy contraption might send me into a homicidal rage...

Speaking of the ocean, I will escape to it soon. We are leaving for two weeks to visit my family on the 21st and I can't wait to breath in all that salty blue and fresh green, to see wide open space and walk on dirt roads. Realistically I will not have time to finish the dolls I'm working on currently before we go, so the next shop update will have to wait until mid-September. I now that's quite a long time between updates, and in the future it won't be nearly so long, but I think I underestimated just how tiring it has been to recover fro my accident; I can really only work in a seated position for 1 - 2 hours at a time.

I did manage to finish one little lady recently, another of the custom orders I've been finishing up over the past month or so. I asked her her name and she told me Pierette...

She is a figurine with poseable arms but static legs, a form I will continue to work on. It's a bit trickier than making a doll at the moment as it's new, and I'm figuring out how to make a static armature. But I like the fact that they can be displayed, so I'm determined to keep trying until I get the hang of it. But I'll still keep making 'real' dolls as well (ie. the kind with bendy legs that start dancing the second you leave the room).

August 07, 2009

A few months back, I was asked to do a commission of John Wilmot, the second Earl of Rochester and his monkey. Well, I don't know if it was really his monkey, but it is a monkey with whom he was famously painted (apparently to the irritation of his long-suffering who felt a bit miffed at being passed over for a monkey).

Rocehster was a Restoration courtier and writer, best known for his bawdy poetry (naughty-word warning!) and a rather dissolute lifestyle; he was exiled for a satire he wrote that mocked Charles II for being preoccupied with sex over his duties as Monarch.

Oh,how I yearn for the good old days! Wouldn't it be fun of Queen Liz
would exile someone? Or be even remotely scandal-ridden for something
other than just being too...British? No, they just don't make scandals
like they used to... I feel that if, as a Canadian, I have to have a monarch on my money and pay taxes that go to funding anachronistic ceremonies, she should at least have to entertain me now and then. I did very much enjoy the film The Queen, but I feel I have the goddess Helen Mirren to thank for that. (She was also brilliant in the BBC series Prime Suspect, but I digress). Okay, my anti-royalist tirade is over now. It's just that the royalty of yore were so much more interesting. They got up to all kinds of intrigue and shenanigans, and today it seems like all they do is live off the fat of the land and cut ribbons at gardens.But back to Rochester, there was a film made about him a few years back called The Libertine (based on the Stephen Jeffrey's play of the same name). Some people complained that it was too slow, but I loved it. Johnny Depp plays Rochester and he is very good but the real star is Samantha Morton, probably my favourite youngish female actor, who plays his lover, the actor Elizabeth Barry. She rawks. Here's a scene that still gives me chills (Johnny Depp-in-ravages-of-syphilis-make-up warning!)

July 31, 2009

Though I mentioned taking a break from custom orders in my last post, I do have a few that I'm finishing up as well as one more to come after these, so they will pop up here as I complete them. My most recent is of the lovely Stacey, aka. Lady Ying.

Stacey just happens to live quite close to me in Montreal, so this doll got to take a moped ride to her new home instead of the plane, courtesy of my husband. (The moped is courtesy of a friend for whom my love is catsitting and who lives very high on a hill. My husband loves riding it so much, I think he might weep when he has to go back to the old sweat-powered bicycle).Doll-Stacey is a figurine with a wooden base (rather than legs) and static arms, and I hope to have a few of these in the next update. They are a nice compromise between a doll and a bust... more affordable than a doll, but maybe a bit less unnerving to those folks who might find a lone doll head seemingly existing independently from its body a smidge disturbing.I'm off to finish another custom: a member of the British aristocracy circa the Restoration. Two more clues: Johnny Depp (he's everywhere!) and a monkey...any guesses?

July 02, 2009

Meet Katika, my first polymer portrait doll. I suppose Edgar and Oscar are also portrait dolls, but Kat is not a dead male author, so I figure she's the first in a new-ish category? Oh, I'm babbling...I just finished a 20-page paper on The Turn of the Screw that nearly killed me and now I can barely see straight.

Anyhoo, Kat kindly allowed me to post this photo, and so you can see how pretty she is. She requested a fish-bone braid, beaded jewlery and a matching purse, so those were all fun, new things I learned while working on her doll. I luuuurve the fish-bone and will definitely use it again.

Now, totally unrelated to dolls, I had to share this adorable photo that both makes me smile and breaks my heart a little. The short-haired, orange and white fellow on the right is my beloved Mr. F, also known as Monsieur L'Orange (he was born here in Montréal, after all!) Mr. F likes to spend his entire day outside in the summer, and, much like a teenager, only comes in to eat and sleep at night (even that is only because we force him...we don't want him getting mixed up with nocturnal, urban riff-raff like the raccoons and skunks that live in our alley. He gets grumpy when we bring him in at dusk, but he endures it.)

The long-haired, somewhat mangy-looking ginger character on the left is an alley cat who we call Foxy. He has roamed our back alley ever since we moved in just over a year ago, and we have been feeding him daily since last fall. He's so used to us now that he hangs out in our backyard; in this picture, he and Mr. F are chillin' on the roof of our shed. He comes right up to us, but we now know better than to try to pet him, as I once got a sound thrashing for attempting just that (well, really he just scratched me, but 'sound thrashing' sounds so Victorian). We have seen him get in to some wicked fights with other cats in the neighbourhood, and he is always the instigator - he's crazy as bag of hammers, as my stepmama would say. But he and F. seem to have an understanding, and scenes like this - the two of them sleeping side by side - are not uncommon. We've also seen them traipsing down the alley together, going in and out of other yards like old friends going for a walk. (And for pet-owners who might, understandably, find this troubling, F. has all his shots, and takes the top-of-the-line super-expensive internal medicine for fleas, heartworm, worms, etc..)

Anyway, I just think it's sweet that they're pals, and when money is not so tight, we plan to take Foxy to the vet and get him tricked out with shots and a general check-up. Recently, he has started darting into our stairwell if we leave the door open, and even came into the apartment once. I guess I dream that one day he might trust us enough that we could take him off the streets, at least for the brutal, Montreal winters. We'll see what he decides...

June 01, 2009

This week I finished one of my favourite pieces that I've made (that sentence sounds gramatically offensive somehow, but I'm too tired to fix it). This is a bust of the lovely Ashley D., who requested something blue and Burtonesque bunny ears:

Ashley has the most amazing profile and piercing blue eyes, so I really wanted to try to capture those features.

I also finished two busts of a couple (who prefer to remain nameless) that will be an anniversary gift from lovely wife to handsome husband.

(Can I just point out in a moment of self- congratulation that I even
made her tiny hoop and multiple stud earrings in doll version? )

I just have to give another cheer for The Turn of the Screw, which I linked to in my last post. SO. GOOD. What a creepy, spine-tingly, beautifully-written little ghost story (little in length, but do dense and fascinating in content). Right now we're reading Deliverance, which I always thought was all Burt Reynolds and "squeal like a pig". Who knew it started as a book?

May 13, 2009

Well, it didn't take me long to fall off the post-every-three-days wagon...I guess I forgot the rigours of academic courses. I love the class I'm taking (American Gothic) but it does entail about about 100 pages of reading a day, and I'm a slow reader, so that translates into several hours of reading per day. But it's fascinating stuff; we just finished Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables, about the legacy of a puritan who accuses a man of witchcraft in order to wrest his property from him. It teeters on absurdity at points, but is a great read nevertheless, if you like incredibly verbose, extravagant 19th-century prose, which I do. The real House is in Salem, Hawthorne's birthplace, but is not nearly as interesting-looking as one would imagine it after reading the book; the book cover is much more evocative.I already have some pictures of doll versions of Hepzibah and Alice Pyncheon forming in my mind....

Some weeks ago I was contacted by the lovely Diana who asked me to make a custom portrait doll of herself. You will see from these pictures of her why I would be happy to say yes:

She has stunning eyes and a sweet but somewhat mysterious smile, so while I'm incapable of making smiling dolls, I tried to capture some of that mystery in her doll.

I still need to give her a richer skin tone, and get the darker make-up around the eyes, as well as finish an adorable little outfit that Diana designed herself. I'll post some final pictures when she's all dressed, properly wigged and has her face on!